As the rebellion that has rocked the US and spread internationally approaches a full month, the counterinsurgency strategy being used to pacify it has become well defined. Police repression and vigilante violence from the outside, and rumors of agent provocateurs to divide the movement from the inside. But another method of internalized, soft counterinsurgency has also been omnipresent: the use of liberal identity politics to spread the idea that fighting back against a racist society is in itself racist. This practice was already well developed by the time of the Michael Brown rebellions in 2014, making use of white allies to put all their power and privilege behind the ostensible leaders of oppressed communities. Though leadership in any community, and for any larger group, tends to be a complicated question, self-identified allies tend to support the leaders appointed and legitimized by the media, leaders who hold positions of power within some of the institutions that help make up this white supremacist society.
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